where has the credit gone?

[winterblues25]

I’ve usually never had a problem being accepted for credit but just tried to increase my credit limit on my card recently and was refused, new balance transfer card and loan applications refused, credit score good, even the balance transfer offers on my credit card which I’ve had for years have been withdrawn??

From OPs posts it looks to me that the £2800 isnt her DH's take home pay. Its his pay after expenses supporting children at Uni. You woulddnt be a higher rate tax payer and take home £2800 per month AFAIK. Your debt is far too high but it must have been a shock when you moved to the higher interest rate. Low credit encourages folk to take on more debt which in this case has had a really bad affect on Op's finances.

It’s a hard place to be but facing reality is the only way to stop digging yourself into a hole.

You’re not in a financial position to be paying for the child in university.

Turning down your thermostat is not going to hurt anyone.

A temporary break from swimming lessons will not hurt your kids.

But high levels of debt and financial stress will.

You’re living above your means. I’ve been there so no judgement. But your mindset needs desperately to change ❤️

In terms of maintaining your credit rating, it does look that way.

We felt it was daft to be paying interest on the outstanding mortgage when we had enough savings to clear it, and the savings interest rate was a fair bit lower than we were paying on the mortgage balance.

Again OP @winterblues25 as per PPs, this may be a bit of the market but it probably reflects your poorer risk rating for credit- so that is where the market is tightening. I have an ‘excellent’ score and already a couple of fishing offers for 0% balance transfers to 2027. I think it’s worth your while reflecting on the helpful PPs on this thread who have kindly suggested you may be better to look at reducing debt. Putting a pair of kids mittens on credit card is not normal financially savvy behaviour, and it’s worrying you see this as ordinary. It seems you will have no resilience to a change in circumstances or markets tightening further. You should be worried and take action to mitigate your family’s exposure to this risk.

I’ve just checked via Experian and was pre approved for three 0% balance transfer credit cards for £8k with 40 other potential offers. It must be your situation rather than a general thing.

I don’t want this to sound harsh but you have a very low income OP but seem to expect to live a middle income lifestyle and are blaming the credit card companies and the government for this.

Even if your husband was taxed at basic rate on his whole income it sounds like you would struggle to live within your means and pay down your debt. It might help to do the maths on that so you’re not falsely externalising your issues. If his take home is £2800 (after paying maintenance to his older children) then I doubt he’s that far into the higher tax band.

Your post would be more productive if you set out your monthly outgoings line by line so posters could analyse and advise. Maybe you need to start thinking out the box - eg are you in a 5 bed house that realistically you just can’t afford on your combined income.

I think mine might qualify as one of those families.

I work PT x 2 jobs, husband is FT and we bring home around £400 a month less than you. The only benefits we received and are entitled to are child benefit and 30 hours funded childcare as we are working parents (which we only use 12 of). My children attend football and swimming lessons. They are well dressed in Next clothes. We eat 90% fresh food.

Aside from our mortgage and student loans, we have no debt. I have a credit card with 0 balance. We manage to save at least £300 every month and have enough to cover 3 months basic costs in the case of an emergency. It can be done - but it takes a lot of planning and dedication to the cause (i.e. me staying home half of the week with our children).
Hope that is helpful for you to see another side of the coin.

I’ve just checked via Experian and was pre approved for three 0% balance transfer credit cards for £8k with 40 other potential offers. It must be your situation rather than a general thing

Mines similar.

However I am hearing similar stories. Not a whole lot of them but enough to notice.
There's a lot of instability going on in the world and credit card providers can call in debts and cut off credit. It might be worth keeping half an eye on our own financial stuff if we use credit. No harm in doing that anyway.

Can anybody who uses credit cards pay them off, if it came to it all of a sudden? If not then I'd probably make it a priority.

It makes perfect sense because you are still in debt and you are still using credit for what you deem everyday essentials. Your credit card will continue whilst you pay the minimum payments.
You are not prepared to make some sacrifices to help get rid of the debt quicker, and whilst your first query was about balance transfers, your debt is relevant to that query.
Either put the effort in to reduce your debt and it is your debt and your fault you have it along with your husband, or carry on doing what your doing, and accept that is how things are right now regarding credit/borrowing, it's that simple really. Hope it works out for you and you manage to sort things somehow.

I'm on maternity leave, current income is considerably less than yours and I've just taken out my second 0% interest card in 6 months. In total I believe I have 3 credit cards, a next account and a very one, all with a minimum of 1000 available to spend and they ALL keep increasing my limits or offering me more.

My total utilisation is around 1% (excluding mortgage) so can't relate to your experiences at all. If you aren't on 0% interest then I can't fathom why you would want to live like that but as you say it's your choice and if they are clamping down then somethings gonna have to give

Same.

Yep. Op’s had a lot of challenge on things she’s said regarding lifestyle, but if she could share what the 3500 essentials are each month she’d get some good advice on where to cut

I wonder if a lot of it is a really high mortgage.

His children go to uni and he supports them.

I can’t possibly see him being able to provide a penny’s assistance for your 3 children with him @winterblues25 based on current and past decade financial situation.

Hi OP,
We've been doing the debt merry-go-round for years and it's still going strong at the moment. I've just transferred the Xmas overspend this morning.

I would start with checking your credit record (experien or similar) to check there isn't a missed payment that you are not aware of.

I think closing the cards you paid off might not have been helpful. Most of the time we get offers from our existing cards and transfer between these.

I think your circumstances have also changed. I think you said you earn £1100 a month. When you declare that level of income as well as having dependents/childcare costs you might not pass affordability. You might not even meet the lenders minimum required income. It would be better for your husband to apply for the card or loan as the higher earner.

As someone else has mentioned students have to declare the household income of their main home. Is your home their main home or their mum's? Only helpful if their mum is not a high earner of course.

If your husband looks for a balance transfer card or loan use the soft search feature on the money saving expert website so he can search a variety of lenders without affecting his credit. He won't be able to transfer cards in the same banking group e.g. if he gets a Barclaycard he won't be able to pay off a Barclaycard but could use a money transfer to do so if that is available via his bank. Some cards say the transfer has to be for a card in your name- others don't.

If your husband can only get a low limit still take it and transfer what you can. You will still be saving on a chunk of the debt and they might extend the limit (unprompted) after a while of making the required payments.

Good luck

Agree, I think on paper this just looks very exposed.

Wondering OP do you have stuff you could sell? I'd want to get rid of or at least reduce this debt as soon as I could, even if it does turn out that you can find a deal somewhere.

Accommodation below market rent i.e council and housing association, could also be military, family/friends etc

Yes it’s almost per a year what some people spend every Saturday night, I can assure you it would cost a hell of alot more it if I lost my job because I was late to work because I’d been looking for a school jumper or made a mistake because I’d tried to get by in 2 rather than 3 hours broken sleep because I’d been staying up to do washing.

I'm not sure what you're spending all this money on, because an extra school uniform shouldn't be putting you in 2 months wage debt.

Look that's ridiculous. Your children can look after their own jumpers. Or have to go to school without one.

It's highly unlikely that your children would make their uniform so dirty that a quick sponge wash wasn't good enough, and even if they did, you can fit in a quick wash without staying up all night.

At least huge numbers of parents manage this, and don't consider it to be a huge deal.

I have absolutely no issue in you saying you like to have extra sets of things, but if money is tight then you are really not losing your job because you don't.

'Some people' are irrelevant. If the shit properly hits the fan - your car breaks down, boiler goes etc or you can't make your minimum payment the bank won't care what other people do.

Some people do class A drugs and drive, doesn't mean if I get caught speeding I shouldn't face any consequences.

Yes school uniform is not that expensive unless its for private but surely it's a once a year purchase excluding school shoes?

Is your child at private school?

Thank you, I’d closed down any cards I’d transferred from or wasn’t using so only the 2 credit cards now, one I have a balance on and one that had previous transfers on. I did consolidate previously and it worked really well, we had 16k of debt and paid off 8k over 3 years, this cleared just as our mortgage renewed so it worked out quite well as what we’d been paying on the loan took care of the increase in our mortgage (I had this very much in mind when we consolidated as didn’t think super low mortgage rates were going to last forever, plus worried that much debt might look bad on renewal).
I did apply for a small loan and was declined, one of the other posters suggested DH would probably have a better chance as he’s got the higher income so we’ll perhaps go down that route. The debt isn’t a problem for us as such, just obviously want to be paying as little interest as possible!

I m not judging you. I have been there and actually had to declare bankruptcy when our business closed.
BUT I can't help feeling you are making a mountain out of a molehill when you say you might lose your job if you don't put a pair of socks on credit or it is your way of burying you head in the sand to justify your bill. Extra socks, gloves and polo shirts do not add up to two months' wages worth of debt (and at our peak, we owed much more than that and had a really variable income but never above the NMW, most of the time a lot less).
However, our debt came from essentials such as food, petrol and basic clothing as we took the absolute bare minimum from our company in an effort to keep it going and to prioritise paying our staff. This time next year ... etc
We are eight years down the line now, both our credit ratings are excellent and we only have one credit card, which we clear each month and I use to collect M&S vouchers for Christmas.
Have a think about where the debt is REALLY coming from. Is it REALLY just bits and pieces of spare clothing? Because your current account must be in dire straits if you need to put a couple of pairs of socks on credit.

Depends what comes up, income and outgoings go up and down, we should have significantly more disposable income once the DSC finish uni in a couple of years